


The Five Stages of Grief

by Elover05



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hold on tight we're on a very sad ride, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21687472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elover05/pseuds/Elover05
Summary: Sombra goes through the five stages of grief.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Sombra | Olivia Colomar, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes & Sombra | Olivia Colomar
Kudos: 21





	The Five Stages of Grief

**Author's Note:**

> Made myself cry writing this, so enjoy!

Part one: Denial.

The flatline of the monitor is… just that. A flatline. Sombra had expected it to be deafening, to sound like the end of the world. But it’s just a prolonged tone. One that means Jesse, her husband, the love of her life, is dead.

But it doesn’t feel like he’s dead.

Sombra knows that's normal. It’s the first stage of grief, right? Denial? 

Sure, logically, she knows he’s gone. His heart has stopped, his organs have shut down, his neurons aren’t firing anymore. But that doesn’t mean she’s processed it. That doesn’t mean she’s realised what it really means.

So she goes about her days. The funeral passes, and she doesn’t shed a tear. Maybe she’s being cold, emotionless, maybe she’s a sociopath, a freak. But she doesn’t cry, doesn’t feel sad, for the longest time.

People look at her like she’s going to blow up. She’s getting one, two, three calls a day from people she barely knew, all saying the same thing: “It’s gonna be okay. I’m here for you.”

And through all that, through the calls and casseroles delivered to her daily, the only thing Sombra can feel is annoyed. It’s so repetitive, the same thing every day. Could they just give it a break? Let her live in peace?

They don’t, and so she stops picking up the phone, stops opening the door.

It’s three weeks later when it finally hits. She’d been having a good day, a great day. Her job, doing freelance work as a programmer was amazing. She’d had so much fun work to do today. 

But then, she needed a flashdrive, and, as casually as possible, she called “Jesse, could you get me a flashdrive?”

Sombra paused. And for the first time, she realised that no, Jesse could not get her a flashdrive. Jesse couldn’t get her anything.

Jesse was gone. She was never going to see him again, never going to run her hands through his shaggy brown hair, never going to slow dance with him while listening to the radio, never going to kiss him, hug him, hold him, ever again. 

And for the first time in a very long time, she cried.

  
  


Part Two: Anger.

The worst part of the overwhelming anger Sombra faces, is that there is no one to blame. Jesse was part of the army, had fought battle after battle, had brushes with death time and time again. And yet, in the end, the thing to take him away, the one bullet he couldn’t dodge, was brain cancer.

It would be so much easier if she had someone to yell at, someone’s name to curse. 

She didn’t.

Sombra wishes, more than anything, that it had been a bullet, a grenade, a bomb, something,  _ anything _ other than cancer. 

It’s unfair! It’s unfair and mean and cruel and she hates it! 

Another pang of anger hits her, harder than the last, and a scream pours from her lips, but Jesse isn’t around to hear it. No one is around to hear it. No one is there, no one can wrap her in strong arms and whispered reassurances. 

She’s alone.

The thought drives her to connect her fist with the wall. There’s a crack, but she can’t feel it. 

A part of her knows that this rage isn’t going to help, isn’t going to bring him back, but she shoves that little voice to the back of her mind. She has a right to this anger! After what’s been taken from her, after what’s happened, she deserves to be able to feel this horrible, awful fury. This fury that consumes her very core, this fury that leaks out through her screaming and violence.

So she punches her house again, and again, and again, until her strength fades and all she’s capable of is pitiful slaps with no real force behind her them.

Sombra wonders if this anger will ever stop. Sombra wonders if she wants the anger to ever stop.

  
  


Part Three: Bargaining.

Sombra goes to church.

She hasn’t been here since she was a little girl, wide eyed and doubtless. It’s selfish, she knows, to go here now, only after what has happened. Only after she has lost Jesse.

But Sombra has always been a little selfish.

She sits in the pews, listens as the priest talks about, ironically, grief and how to live with it. She bows her head to hide the falling tears. There’s time at the end, where you may come pray privately. 

She steps up to the altar, and for the first time in years, she prays. She prays for a miracle, for Jesse to come back, to come home.

She knows it’s not possible, but what is God if not the embodiment of impossible?

So Sombra prays. She prays long and hard. She prays until her knees are sore, until tears are leaking out of her eyes, until the words are all mixing together in a symphony of sadness until her clasped hands begin to cramp with the strain of clamping together so tightly. She prays. 

_ “Please. Please bring him back.” _

And she has the horrible thought that she might not survive if God doesn’t listen to her wishes.  
  
  


Part Four: Depression.

Sombra feels… light. Not in the happy way, the way where your head is in the stars, where you’re on top of the world, where you can fly. But in the way where it feels like part of your soul has left your body, where you’re empty. Where your insides are caved out, leaving you an empty shell.

She can’t bring herself to do anything. She eats nothing but leftovers, she stops doing work, she doesn’t clean the house.

She’s surrounded by a mess, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t know if she could care, while feeling like this. While feeling miserable and empty and terrible. 

Sombra cries. She cries and cries, and she hates it. It never feels better. Eventually, she runs out of tears and chokes on dry sobs, curled up in their bed. Her bed now, she supposes. Because Jesse will never curl up in it again.

The thought makes her cry harder.

Pain courses through her, never ending. Always there. Sometimes, it leaves her debilitated in bed. She hates it.

It’s like drowning. Like she’s in an ocean of pain, and her lungs are filling up. It burns, hot and fiery, but it’s also so cold, freezing her inside out.

Sombra doesn’t know how much more of this she can take. How much more of this will she have to endure? How much longer until…

Until what? What happens after? Is she just expected to move on with her life, to get over the loss of the one person she loved? 

She almost doesn’t want to get over it. How can she? This has got to be some twisted form of justice. This is what she has left of Jesse. This is the only way she has to honor him.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

  
  
  


Part Five: Acceptance.

Sombra doesn’t know what to do, so she calls Gabriel. He’s at her house within minutes.

Gabriel, who was always there for her. Gabriel, who was like a father to her. Gabriel, who always knew what to do.

“I don’t know what to do,” They both say at the same time, when Sombra opens the door. This is enough to make Sombra smile, if only a little.

Without a word, she opens the door wider, and Gabriel steps inside. 

“I don’t want to ask you if you’re okay, because I know you’re not, but… Are you okay?” Gabriel asked after a few seconds of silence.

Sombra takes a minute to collect herself, to find the right words. “I… no. I’m so not okay that I don’t even know how to be okay anymore.”

Gabriel nods, understanding. He’s, perhaps, the one person that can understand her. Other than Jesse, but he isn’t here anymore. 

Gabriel considers what she said, before pulling her into a hug without warning. Sombra doesn’t hug back, just lets herself be held, lets the strong arms wrap round her and keep her together. 

She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t know if she even has any tears left. 

“I think,” Gabriel began, his normally confident, gruff voice sounding uncertain, “I think that we’ll be okay.”

Sombra knew that he and Jesse were close too. She knew it hurt him to lose the person he thought of as a son-in-law. “Are you just saying that to make me feel better?” She asked, voice muffled by the hug.

“I do. I think it might take a while, but I think that we’ll get through it.”

And Sombra really believed him.


End file.
